


to hurt a good man

by angelkoushi



Series: this pain won't be for evermore [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Elementary School Teacher Sugawara Koushi, Firefighter Sawamura Daichi, Hurt No Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Break Up, Post-Time Skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28162839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelkoushi/pseuds/angelkoushi
Summary: Sugawara Koushi knows he's moved on. He really has.(At least, hethinkshe has.)
Relationships: Sawamura Daichi/Sugawara Koushi
Series: this pain won't be for evermore [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2063205
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31
Collections: My favorite haikyuu fics





	to hurt a good man

**Author's Note:**

> evermore (taylor swift) - **happiness**
> 
> _no one teaches you what to do when a good man hurts you, and you know you hurt him too ___

***

Suga doesn’t want to go to the reunion. 

He has told Kiyoko so, over and over. He exhausted every single excuse in the book just to beg off of it. And Kiyoko claimed that she got it, that it’s okay and she understood.

(She really _did_ , but also, it seemed wrong not to insist and it’s been _so long_ Suga, come on.)

Eventually she wore Suga down (or Suga just ran out of excuses because he really isn’t that busy this time of year and he didn’t have any prior commitment anyway). Which is why Suga finds himself standing at the front door of the Tanaka house one August evening, furiously thinking of reasons not to come in.

They’ve all been invited to watch the Japan VS Argentina game together at the Tanaka house — well, all who could make it, anyway. But Tsukishima has his own holiday training for the Frogs, Ennoshita is on duty, and Asahi and Noya are across the world on some whirlwind adventure. Yamaguchi and Yachi are in Tokyo and couldn’t come down to visit, and Kinoshita and Narita are running late because of work.

And of course, being the very reasons they planned to meet up in the first place, Kageyama and Hinata are both taking on Oikawa and the Argentine national team.

Which, naturally, leaves the Tanakas — both Ryuu and Kiyoko now, who would’ve _thought_ — and himself.

And Daichi.

Daichi, who also happens to be the very reason Suga has been adamantly against seeing anyone from his alma mater ever since he graduated. He would have considered seeing Takeda _sensei_ and Coach Ukai at least once to give them a little token of appreciation, seeing as he is on a similar path as theirs now. But even the very thought of stepping into school — going into _their_ gym — just to see his former mentors still feels like too much.

He knows it’s guilt. After all, he is the main reason why he’s so uncomfortable and this all happened in the first place. He chose his path, and now he’s reaping its consequences.

Not that they are bad consequences, and that he chose wrong; they _aren’t_ , and the choice was neither good nor bad. But leaving the country for advanced study was a choice he had to make to get to where he is, to learn what he learned, and he knows he hurt no one in the process.

(That last bit is a lie. He _knows_ it’s a lie, and he knows he hurt more than himself with what he did.)

Suga sighs as he mindlessly kicks the sole of his shoe on the pavement. He has been standing out front for a good half hour, and it was a wonder that Kiyoko hasn’t called him yet.

 _Come_ on _, you idiot. Don’t be pathetic. It’s just a small dinner party, and later on it will be too loud to think about these things. And anyway, you’re over him, right?_

He’s over Daichi, he really is.

(Except he couldn’t actually tell because he hasn’t seen Daichi since the breakup, even if they had a rather small neighborhood in Miyagi. But he’s _over_ him.)

(At least, he’d like to think so.)

Suddenly, a shuffle comes from beyond the closed front door before him. Things happen way too quickly for Suga to duck and hide away. All at once, the door opens, and there comes the source of all his worries that night, pulling on a jacket while simultaneously stuffing his feet into his shoes.

“Yeah don’t worry, I have my wallet with me—Oh.”

“Oh my god. Suga, is that you?”

_Perfect, impeccable timing. Well, here goes nothing._

“Hey,” Suga says, pushing out a rather pathetic chuckle. _It’s fine, I got this._ “Sorry I’m late, I had a few things to fix around the house.”

Kiyoko slips on a pair of slides and walks out of the house to give Suga a hug. Suga appreciatively buries his face in her hair, all to avoid looking at the _other_ looming presence standing by the doorway.

“I’m glad to see you,” she says as she pulls away and gives him an affectionate once-over, much like a doting mother. That instinct has always looked good on her, and her marriage only served to heighten it.

“And I, you,” Suga replies good-naturedly as he lets his guard down a little bit.

Kiyoko, cheeky little minx, decides to take advantage of his momentary lapse in defense.

“Why don’t you accompany Daichi to the convenience store? We needed a few more things and a couple of beers anyway.”

Suga’s panicked “what?” came out the same time as the other man’s “no, it’s alright.”

_Hell if he’s going to let Daichi get the satisfaction of rattling his calm._

For the first time that evening, Suga looks up to appraise Daichi.

He hasn’t changed much; although to be fair, it’s been less than a year since they saw each other last. Daichi is still big and squarish, still has short-cropped hair and slightly tanned skin. If anything, he might have bulked up a little from his firefighter job, but otherwise, he is the same.

Steady. Warm. Achingly familiar.

Suga swallows as he draws his eyes away.

Daichi clears his throat. “I got it, Kiyoko. Two packs of beers and a bottle of soy sauce isn’t that much. I can handle it.”

Suga snorts. _Stupid, stupid pride._ “We know you can. Anything else you need, Kiyoko?”

The woman in question smiles. “Snacks, maybe?”

“Alright, I can get that.”

Daichi finishes pushing his heels into his shoes and walks over to them. “I’m really fine—”

Suga waves his hand in the air dismissively “I know, I know, you can handle it. Let’s just get this over with or we might miss the match, alright?”

With that, he turns and walks back out of the driveway, and feels both relief and fear when he hears Daichi follow him. The latter keeps a few steps behind.

The night is young, and as they walk down streets either of them know like the backs of their hands, they hear sounds they both grew up hearing. Families call out to each other that dinner is ready, TVs show the latest news, children walk home from school. 

Everything is familiar, undisturbed by the chasm that had split between the two young men walking down the streets, a chasm that only they could see.

After a long, silent moment of light footsteps and shallow breaths, Daichi speaks.

“You look well.”

Suga doesn’t look back. “Thanks. So do you.”

“You’re teaching now, aren’t you? So you _did_ end up with children, after all.”

Suga fakes a shallow laugh. “Yeah. I guess in the end, I was always meant to come back here.” _Stupid, stupid. Don’t start sounding regretful, now._ He clears his throat. “And you! You’re a firefighter! That must be exciting!”

He hears Daichi laugh as well, and hates how he could tell that it was also faked. “It wasn’t like anything I’d imagined before, I’ll give you that. It’s hard work, but I guess you could say it’s fulfilling.”

Suga can tell how fond Daichi is of his job, even without seeing his face. It’s in the way his voice softens, in how he tries to discount the job but speaks highly of it in the next breath. It is in the way he could hear the smile at the tail end of his words. He can _just_ imagine that bashful smile, and has to keep himself from looking behind him to actually see it.

The distance between them is palpable, almost painful. Once, they had been able to talk about everything, tease one another about anything because they had known it all. Because they’d been inseparable, once. They experienced everything together: celebrated, hurt, cried, and laughed together.

Now, Suga struggles to make a relevant comment about how Daichi has been, seeing as he staved off keeping in touch with the man, or even stalking his social media.

Well, except for that one time.

“I saw you started going out with Yui?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that happened.”

“Congratulations! It was a long time coming, honestly. You never believed us when we told you she likes you.”

“I… Well, I had no reason to believe it, then.”

_Right. Because through all that time, you’d chosen me. You were with me._

_You loved_ me _._

Suga chuckles in an attempt to shrug off the heavy feeling that threatened to weigh his shoulders down. “This is great! Yui is a cool girl, and you guys have a lot in common.” 

It hurts to realize that he means it: Yui really _is_ one of the sweetest girls he knows, and Suga would be lying if he said he never felt guilty for being happy at her expense. She was nothing but supportive of them back then, when he and Daichi were starting out. They even kept in touch for a while after graduation.

In a quieter voice, hoping that Daichi fails to pick it up, he adds, “She’s lucky to have you.”

_She really is. She doesn’t deserve a lesser man, and Daichi doesn’t deserve a lesser partner._

Even as he says it, he knows Daichi hears. They arrive at the crossroads, only a few meters away from the convenience store. There are less houses here, less people; less sounds to mask the softer noises.

He hears, and Suga feels him stop in his tracks.

“I’m sorry, Suga.”

Suga stops as well. The wind blows around them. For a moment, Suga wonders if he can pretend he heard nothing because of it. _Too late now, I stopped already._

“Sorry for what?”

“For… for what—”

“For what happened? Please, Daichi, that was hardly your fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault either.”

 _Right._ “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It just happened the way it did, and we just had to go with the flow. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Still…"

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t apologize.” _Don’t make it sound like you regret it. Like you regret me._

Suga sighs. He turns to fully face Daichi, for the first time that night. Kiyoko and Ryuu were probably wondering where they’d gone. But also, knowing Kiyoko, this might have been something she hoped would happen. He wonders if she prepared for the aftermath at all.

The man before him had his hands dug in his pockets, his great head lowered. He has never been the proud one between them, his Daichi. Instead, he was factual, pragmatic, sensible. Which, during their time together, had been what grounded Suga, who tended to be reckless, a definite whirlwind.

His tempest had long since calmed down. It had to, after losing its anchor.

“Look, Daichi.” Daichi raises his head to look at him, and Suga bites the inside of his cheek at the sight. 

Daichi’s eyes — big and brown and so, _so_ honest — gaze back at him with just a hint of remorse. Whether that was because he still longed for what they had or sorry that they didn’t end up the way they wished, Suga doesn’t want to know. They are too far gone to do anything about that. He knows it would only peel at the callouses he has grown over his wounds, reopen them and leave them gaping again. 

It has taken him way too long to let that happen.

“We’re okay.”

“Huh?”

“I’m saying, let’s be okay. It wasn’t your fault, and it wasn’t mine. We had different paths to take, and unfortunately, that meant not walking in the same direction. It is what it is.”

He sees Daichi swallow, but his gaze remains locked on Suga. Asking without words, his eyes wonders if it’s really okay. If they are really okay.

And Suga nods.

“I’m not saying this for the sake of our friends,” he adds. _Maybe just a little bit._ “But I _do_ miss you, and we were good friends before everything, right? Was it really so bad that we can’t be friends now?”

He watches Daichi consider it, then nod. “No, it wasn’t."

After a long, pregnant pause, Suga adds in a voice just above a whisper: "We were happy, weren't we, Daichi?"

Daichi doesn't look at him this time. His gaze is trailed toward the ground, in the space between them that, to people looking in, only seems like less than a meter away. But to them, to the two people standing on either side of the chasm Suga has made, it is a hole in the ground too deep and dark to traverse, and too far across to build a steady bridge over.

After a while, Daichi whispers, "Yeah. Yeah we were."

It drives a shard of ice through Suga's heart. He might have lived life just fine if he had broken only his heart in the process, if Daichi managed to hate him at the end of all things. But Daichi, steadfast, loyal Daichi, loved him till the last of the strings tying them together finally snapped. Suga was the one who cut them all off: it was a necessity he felt compelled to do, and the excuse he used was that, he needed to wean Daichi off of his presence.

He knows now that he did it for his own benefit, to cut free from anything and everything that would stop him from facing forward and seeing what the world had to offer him. And that included cutting Daichi off with finality.

It hurt, badly. But Suga cannot ever fathom how painful that must have been for Daichi.

After a while, Daichi says, "If it’s really okay— If... we are really okay—”

“It is. We are.”

“Okay.” He heaves a deep breath, blatantly relieved. “Thank you, Suga.”

The look on his face makes Suga want to dig a hole and bury himself in it.

_Please. Please don’t thank me. Don’t thank me or apologize or whatever because it only sounds as if I’m just one of your regrets._

_I was more than that – I know I was – even if I took it for granted._

Suga breathes deep to steady himself, then holds out a hand. “Friends?”

Daichi smiles, warm and genuine. He takes Suga’s hand, and Suga thinks belatedly that it was a mistake to initiate the handshake. Daichi’s hands are a lot wider than his, if a bit shorter. They fold around his long fingers like the embrace he craves, and Suga keeps himself from either gripping too hard or yanking his hand back.

It’s too damn _familiar_.

Daichi lets go first, this time. Suga thinks it’s only right; he’s had his turn walking away first, after all.

“Well, we better get back to the Tanakas,” he says, and Suga hates how he could see how light Daichi’s shoulders become. How airy his words are now, compared to the clipped way he talked just a scarce few minutes before.

_Is that it, then? You’ve been walking around all slumped like that because you’ve been waiting for me to tell you that it’s okay, that we’re okay?_

_You big, incredible, selfless idiot._

“Yeah, yeah we should. Why don’t you go ahead? I just have a quick phone call to make.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

This time, Daichi doesn’t hesitate. He nods, shrugs, then walks right ahead. Suga pretends to take his phone out, but all the while he watches Daichi’s broad back walk farther and farther away from him. At one point, Daichi takes his phone out of his pocket to answer a call, and Suga recognizes the way his shoulders hunch over in preparation for a smile or a laugh.

“Hi, Yui! Are you on your way?”

That drives the final nail on the coffin.

_Was this how it felt, Daichi? Did you stand there all those years ago, watching me leave? Did you stand there, knowing that there was nothing you could do to stop me?_

_I’ve been cruel, my love. I’m so, so sorry._

Suga sighs, then looks skyward. The dark blue expanse was clear of clouds, and stars dotted the entire horizon. The wind didn’t blow, the dogs didn’t bark. No one walked by him, and the street lamps didn’t flicker. His phone didn’t ring or vibrate.

It is so quiet.

***

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of another series of oneshots I want to write, inspired by Taylor's Swifts recently release album as of December 2020. I'm not sure when I'll be able to complete it (or if I will be able to write for all the songs in evermore) but we'll see how it goes.
> 
> All the stories will be interconnected somehow, wherein they take place post-timeskip in Haikyuu, where people know each other and most of them are friends.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
